SHATTERED IRON DREAMS
PHANTOM STRANGER: SHATTERED IRON DREAMS - 1945	by Tom Lynch

1945 - April 14 - London

“Want him dead, then?”

Two men stood within Winston Churchill’s office, looking down at them. One of them smiled cheerfully at him; he had asked the question.

“Let us assume for a moment, gentlemen, that you could - though this seems unfounded. What, if I might ask, would be the price?”

The chatty one looked across at his friend, who hadn’t said a word yet. “Well, on account of my friend Ahasuerus here’s… involvement, we aren’t charging much. Just this; on April 30th, the Allies will break into his bunker. They’ll find him dead, apparently of suicide. What we want you to do is pass no comment.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Pass no comment. That means don’t say it was suicide, don’t say he was killed. Especially don’t mention our names.”

He paused. “The folks on the gate’ll do that tonight, in the bars.”

Winston Churchill was silent for a long moment. “Gentlemen, I beg explanation.”

“Well, it’s actually fairly simple.” The man paused for a second. “Humanity as a whole has a number of odd beliefs. If enough people believe something, it fuels the objective truth of that belief. I used magic to prolong my life, and manoeuvred someone into spreading the rumour that I was immortal. Hell, I got Casanova to use my legend to get laid. Enough people believed it that I became immortal.” Churchill nodded, slowly.

“People stop believing over generations, though. I’m a conspiracist’s dream now, not a fantasist’s. But if I am occasionally seen to have meddled… and my involvement is possible but not certain… that’s enough to keep me alive.”

He spread his arms. “And that is why I introduced myself to your guards as I did. Why I offer you this now. We can do it, Ahasuerus and I… and all we ask is that you let a few crackpots jump to conclusions.”

Churchill sat silent for a while, his expression betraying nothing, and then he nodded.

“You won’t regret this, PM,” he said. “Come on, Wanderer… let’s go catch us a plane out to the old Deutschland.”

“One question, before you go,” Churchill called. “Why did you wait this long?”

“Had to make sure you were winning,” the man said. “If we deliver the coup de grace, it has to be as you win. If you lost, we would have become freedom fighters.” His smile spread wide. “That’s the good thing about conquering nations; the conquered will always make a good legend out of it.”

And with that, the Comte de Saint-Germain and the Wandering Jew took their leave of the Prime Minister of England.

1945 - April 25 - Beinecke Library, Yale University

The Phantom Stranger stepped out of a bookcase and into the room. Sparing but a glance over his shoulder to check that the mystic portal had resealed properly, he stalked the shelves. He knew exactly what he wanted, and where it lay. He knew further that Colonel Friedman and his men had returned it to the University only an hour previous; before that it had been subject to continuous cryptographic study, the team applying the cryptographic techniques over the war to the secrets locked within it.

He removed Manuscript 408 from it’s resting place, opened it upon a table, and began to read, eyes skimming almost lazily over the text - a text written in an alphabet and language so oblique that the first translation had in fact rendered cracks in the vellum pages as letters.

The Stranger found what he was looking for in the contents and turned to page 207. Running his finger down the page, he found what he was looking for - the blade that should kill Hitler.

A warning against the Teutonic Knights came with the information. For perhaps the first time in a decade, the Stranger allowed his lips to quirk in the makings of a smile.

Even supposing, as Himmler maintained, that these twelve were reincarnated mystic masters…

Even supposing that, the Stranger was confident of his ability to defeat them.

But first, the blade…

It’s location was not - could not - be given in the Manuscript; that work only dealt with fact, after all. The Stranger felt a brief pang on unease; he would, it seemed, have to go back to Greece. The events of his last visit had been… unpleasant.

But the fallout from that battle with the First Spectre still permeated the ground around Delphi. Small wonder the Oracle had been built there, centuries on; Apollo had found it easier to speak with his disciples on such distorted ground.

The Stranger straightened. Carefully, lovingly, he closed the Voynich Manuscript and restored it to it’s resting place.

And then he was no longer there.

1945 - April 25 - Delphi, Greece

Standing within the ruins of the Oracle, the Stranger debated the correct tool for this divination. He had watched them all borne, finding himself most impressed by the Tarot - a pack of playing cards until a charlatan claimed they possessed oracular powers, and suddenly, they did. But that seemed inappropriate, as well as unlikely to provide the kind of specificity he needed; while composing his horoscope on Mars, he had divined that five days remained before Hitler should fall for the greatest benefit.

Yet here a horoscope would not help, either.

With a heavy sigh he produced a world map from within his cloak and suspended it against the Temple’s remnants, and, from a distance of ten paces, hurled a throwing knife blindly toward it.

So that was where it rested…

The Stranger chuckled to himself.

1945 - April 25
Pirate’s Republic of Libertatia, Madagascar - The Dreaming

Halfway through it’s third century of existence, the Republic’s white flag still flew above it’s major port, a haven for swashbucklers, pirates, freebooters, and other such crusaders for the liberty of the sea.

The yacht currently putting in cruised neatly to a halt at it’s bay, and one of the crew jumped to shore with a rope, beginning the process of making fast.

The Phantom Stranger walked casually out onto the quay from behind the yacht’s sail, unnoticed by the crew until that moment, a visitor in dreams, and into the centre of town.

The Carracioli Museum, he suspected, would hold the item he sought. Entering, he found himself surrounded by mementos of the culture such a libertarian nautical culture might be expected to develop. A muttered incantation and he was aware of the whereabouts of the cutlass for which he was here.

He paused a moment before taking it but, after all, the Dream King was currently unavailable, and thus he could not ask permission. He resolved to apologise, and offer the Endless his tribute, as soon as he could once more speak with Morpheus.

1945 - April 30 - SS Headquarters

Perhaps the most bizarre sight to be found within SS headquarters throughout the war was that of the Phantom Stranger, in the European conflict’s final days, stalking the corridors of the building, cape flying behind him, ethereal cutlass in hand, battered hat as always on his head.

Taking the advice of the Voynich Manuscript, he had decided to strike against the Teutonic Knights first, though he was mindful of the fact he had but two hours before the most apposite time for Hitler’s death.

Still, there were only twelve of Himmler’s cadre…

White eyes scanned the halls and corridors as he passed them. Swiftly enough, he found the black-and-white garbed mystics. An instant after he perceived them, the door that had separated him from them was open and his cutlass blade slipped through the neck of the nearest Knight.

The others moved instantly to defend themselves. The Stranger allowed himself, for an instant, to admire the decision and precision of their movements, but did not concern himself overmuch. Raising the cutlass, he saluted his opponents, and dived forward.

The first Teuton wielded a broadsword, slow, cumbersome, bedecked with the inscriptions of runic magic - and, somehow, able to parry the dreamsteel of the cutlass.

“A spell weaved well,” the Stranger commented. “But how good is your swordplay?”

And he let memory move his arm - memory and long-learned instinct, as the room seemed to dissolve to a series of single combats on the Spanish Main, standing with Drake’s fleet. Back-to-back with the killer Edward Teach, preserving him that he might strike the blow that was his fate.

Little things.

The dreamblade quickened in the air, steel blurring. The Teuton, it turned out, was a good swordsman, after his fashion, and familiar enough with his blade that he managed to parry much of the Stranger’s assault, and indeed sustained no fatal blow for almost a minute. But a cutlass is a fast blade, where a broadsword is not, and if the strength of the broadsword does not bear his opponent down, soon he will fall.

Two of the Teutonic Knights lay dead at the Stranger’s hand, and he turned to face the others.

One had reacted in a slightly more modern fashion than the others; the Stranger found himself subject to a burst of machine-gun fire.

He turned his impassive face on the gunman, and waited silently, wondering whether the Knight would run out of ammunition first, or whether he would realise the lack of effect his efforts were enjoying.

Of course, he thought, did it really matter?

In a matter of moments the bullets ceased. The Stranger contemplated a smile, but decided against it; his countenance did not change as he sprang forward, two swift slashes with the dream cutlass dispensing of the gun - through the mechanism housing - and the man - through the ribcage.

“And then there were nine,” he muttered, thin-lipped; his implacable face picking them out one by one, locking eyes with them. One of them unleashed some form of spell at him; he raised his hand and halted the bolt of energy in front of him, examined it.

“Crude,” he said, aloud. “Here…”

His fingers plunged into the roiling mass of energy, twisting it as if it were clay. And then he flipped it around and started it once more on it’s path.

“None of you present a challenge, do you?” he asked, almost regretfully.

1945 - April 30 - Hitler’s Command Bunker

Le Comte de Saint-Germain fiddled at the lock, and it sprang open.

“Something isn’t right,” his companion said.

“Too right,” le comte replied. “But it’s helping us, so I vote we let it not be right and then figure it out later.”

“If you insist…” Ahasuerus shook his head. “I’m sure there were supposed to be mystic wards.”

Le Comte shrugged. “Maybe there are, but they just got done badly.”

“Oh, come on. We know they got some of it right, and it’s not like warding spells are that hard.”

“Look, does it bloody matter?” Saint-Germain said, exasperatedly. He pulled out his gun and started to check it for the third time. “It’s not like they can kill us, all we’ve got to do is remain apocryphal.”

With that, he shoved the door open and burst into the room, jumping nimbly onto the table in the centre. His pistol barrel never wavered from Hitler’s forehead.

>“Howyadoing, Adolf? Pleasure to meet you.”<*

>“What? How did you-“<

Hitler’s response was cut off by a deft gunshot, the Comte deliberately stepping forward to fire from a range that might have been suicide, might not.

>”That’s nice,”< the Comte said, and then straightened up, tossing the gun back to the Wandering Jew, who busied himself executing the remaining inhabitants of the room.

[*-Translated from the German - Tom]

“Good final last words, I thought,” the Comte said. Ahasuerus looked back at him.

“This is the shoddiest piece of work I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” the Comte said, and shrugged. “It’ll work. ‘Mon and lets get out of here before the soldiers find us.”

“My scrying suggested we had another hour, remember?”

“Naturlich. But we just messed up history, my friend, so those scryings may not be- what?”

Ahasuerus had just developed the most nervous expression the Comte had ever seen on his face in the hundred or so years they had worked together - the immortals saw each other but rarely, if at all.

“I think whatever wasn’t right just caught up with us,” he said, watching one of the walls. The Comte looked at it, too-

“I never emerge where people are looking,” came a voice from behind them.

The Phantom Stranger stood inside the room, near the opposite wall, cutlass in hand, looking dispassionately at the slaughter.

“Well, gentlemen, thank you so much,” he said, fixing those blank eyes once more on the two immortals. “You’ve done the world a great favour. He was supposed to die half an hour hence, you realise?”

“Sorry?”

“Half an hour hence, and by this blade,” the Phantom Stranger said. “Such a death, at such a pivotal instant, would have arranged the history of the world in the most beneficial manner.”

The immortals exchanged glances.

“Crap,” Saint-Germain said. Ahasuerus, as so often, remained silent, but his expression mirrored that of the Count.

“This vexes me, gentlemen,” the Stranger continued. “For such is my task, and I am tasked also to reveal as little of myself as I can. An increase in the number of appearances I must make endangers these tasks. And that,” he stepped forward, his face growing more ominous without changing expression, “vexes me greatly.”

“Um… we’ll help?” the Comte offered. “I mean, even you can’t be everywhere at once, and if you just point us in the right direction occasionally…”

The Stranger pondered the offer for a moment.

“Such would help with my chief task,” he said. “Yet it would also weaken the second, to allow two mortals to learn too much of me.”

“Uh… technically we’re immortals…”

The Stranger smiled thinly. “So think you.”

He sighed, abruptly. “No. The discovery of your bodies here would further disrupt the beneficial arrangement of history. Particularly with it’s lord away, the imagination’s link to reality must be kept at it’s status quo. Dreams contain weapons too potent for man to possess… Go, both of you. Because I have no time to spare to deal with you as would be necessary.”

He locked eyes with them both, one after the other, to impress them with the seriousness of the matter. “The very damage you have wrought require such work as I cannot spare the time to dispose of you correctly. Do not vex me so again.”

The idiots let me loose with one of the most powerful beings out there! Woot!

Seriously, though, I do like the Stranger. His motives include, but are not limited to, those cited above, he has almost no sense of humour, an undetermined power level, and no one’s sure where he comes from or what he is…

Because that’s the way he wants it, and he’s got the power to do it. So when Will asked me to do some stuff for JLU2001, the Stranger was my first choice (following him might have been Hitman… ah, what might have been, eh?)

The Stranger doesn’t lend himself well to an ongoing series - you’d let all his cats out of the bag far too fast. So I’m going to be using him in a series of one-shots and mini-series, inspired partly by my conception of the character, partly by the fact JLU as yet has virtually nothing working in the occult DCU (well, mostly Vertigo these days) unless you count Wonder Woman’s connection to the Greek pantheon, and partly by Ken Hite’s Suppressed Transmission books, reminding us of history that never was (and so has gone to the Dreaming) and the odd items that lie around nonetheless. And the legends that arise around men…

To that end, then, Ahasuerus is the Jew who, according to mediaeval legend, insulted Jesus as He carried the cross. Jesus replied “Wait here until I come again,” and the Wandering Jew has been immortal since. (Mediaeval legends are excellent sources for the dark side of the Christian mythos, and while we’re at it, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is a satisfying reworking of William Blake, all of him, the King James Version and Paradise Lost into a cohesive whole. Until you get to the ending, which is a bit lame. Worth reading anyway).

Le Comte de Saint-Germain really existed, though he almost certainly had no claim to such a title. Casanova genuinely did pretend to be the Comte in order to seduce someone, and for some reason he’s become an immortal (essentially, his date of birth is hazy, his date of death hazier, and someone trapped him in the legend of immortality, or so history tells us. The Comte, as we saw, says otherwise). My favourite take on the Comte comes from the roleplaying game Unknown Armies, which gives you three different versions to choose from (in Statosphere).

All details of the Voynich manuscript except it’s contents are as given - no one’s yet translated it, and the Colonel and his men did have a go during WWII. It’s manuscript 408 in the library given above to this day.

Libertatia is now thought to be the creation of writer Daniel Defoe, writing under a pseudonym. Carracioli was the man who inspired it’s ideals, according to Defoe.

Himmler did indeed have an occult SS inner circle that he called the Teutonic Knights. They are almost certainly no relation to the original Order of that name.

The First Spectre is mine, dammit.

Notes in further Stranger stories will probably not be this long.

Until next time, send comments to Tom Lynch.